My first job after I left High School was working at an office supply store in Baltimore. I got the job by applying for a position posted in the “Gay Paper” (Yes that was the name) asking for a “Straight Acting” young man. I needed a job and had just spent a lot of time and effort coming out so I wasn’t too keen on “acting straight” but I thought “What the heck, I just keep my mouth shut about being gay, I had done it all my life”. I didn’t think of myself as being over flamboyant so I assumed that I would qualify as far at the straight acting part went. I put on my best clothes and traveled from the Maryland suburbs to downtown Baltimore where I met with a man who I will call “Alfie” that wasn’t his real name but you will understand why I prefer not to mention his real name. Anyway we are talking 30 years ago so I’m pretty sure he’s dead… at least I hope he’s dead. Alfie was a rather grotesque looking man his face had been “crushed” in an accident and despite the many surgeries he had undergone he was still seriously disfigured it must have been terrible, the trauma he had endured he was at one time a good-looking man…so sad. Once I got to know Alfie I imagined that he betrayed some mobster who had him beaten very badly but in reality it was probably a car accident of something like that, I never asked and he never shared.

So Alfie explained to me that the job was essentially managing his office supply store while he and his business partner Alan were out making sales calls to promote the business. I really didn’t think that I qualified for the job and thought I would never hear from him after this interview, other than the straight acting part I had no qualification but I was not a bad-looking youth and apparently Alfie, being gay, was attracted to me and asked me to start working the following Monday. I was thrilled.

The job was pretty normal at first and I enjoyed the responsibility of managing the store and with Alfie and Alan always out trying to drum up new business I spent a large part of my day alone and it really wasn’t hard since it catered mostly to local offices and the occasional walk in but otherwise I just put orders together and packed them up for delivery.

One Friday evening just as I was getting ready to leave Alfie asked me if I wanted to go out to dinner. I said sure…what else was I going to do? Just head back to my small town out in the country and watch my parents rot on their sofa? So Alfie took me to a restaurant in a more affluent part of Baltimore. It was a long time ago, I think the place was called “The Hunt Club” or something like, very classy. I just know that I had never in my entire life been to restaurant like this. Growing up I was lucky if my parents could afford McDonald’s and even then that was a rare treat so here I was at a restaurant where the men were wearing jackets and ties and the women were decked out in beautiful dresses wearing jewels and such, this was a life I had never imagined, something that I had never been a part of back home waiting for my father’s military retirement check so my family would have food for the month (See Inge’s Folly) As a matter of fact I remember the matre’d almost didn’t let me in because I didn’t have a jacket to wear, they were required. Luckily they had a “loaner” jacket for just such instances a hideous red and white striped jacket and I remember thinking I looked better without it, as a matter of fact I got quite a few stares as we were being seated. But I guess the gaudiness of the jackets served two purposes, to embarrass the wearer for daring to have entered without one and to ensure that the user did not walk out with it (like anyone would want to – it reminded me of an old 1950’s soda jerk costume).

That night I had “Filet Mignon” for the first time in my life. I don’t remember what we talked about (30 years ago) but I do remember that he got a huge kick out of giving me an experience that I had never had in my entire young life. I couldn’t wait to get home and brag to my parents. I was so oblivious to what life had to offer I felt like I was becoming a success. Yes, a success, one dinner as a low paying store manager and I thought I had achieved greatness. Of course I was still living at home and didn’t have a car, no future to speak of, but I thought I was something, and it would only get better.

There came the day when Alfie surprised me with an American Express card. He actually applied for the credit card in my name. He told me that this was a start for me to get credit. It wasn’t a company card, it seems that Alfie had applied for the card pretending to be me. He had apparently set up a checking account in my name in anticipation of getting this card, of course I never had access to this checking account, it was established for this one purpose, for what I would find out later was credit fraud he had perpetrated on many young men. I didn’t know at the time but Alfie was establishing credit in not just my name but other young men with whom he was associating, this office supply store wasn’t his only business nor his only activity. He was operating a warehouse that did importing/exporting. He was dabbling in Real Estate and was essentially a “Flipper” before the term had ever started being used.

That night Alfie, after handing me my American Express card took me to “Bambergers” at the White Marsh Mall and told me how to get “instant credit” he told me that with my American Express card I could easily get store credits and he was right. Within minutes I had a $500 charge. Later I got a $500 charge at Hecht’s, then Hutzler’s. I really thought I was something. Barely out of high school and here I was at these high-end department stores. At home Kmart or the now defunct Ames Store were considered luxury shopping. I had no idea that the Alfie kept a copy of the credit card he had obtained for me and was using it in who knows how many illegal business dealings. Anyway that first night after establishing credit I left the mall with Calvin Klein designer jeans and a suede Member’s Only jacket among other designer clothes. The next time Alfie took me to the Hunt Club I was not questioned at the door as now I owned a jacket. What a wonderful life. I hadn’t even stepped foot in a College but I was on my way to greatness (that was what my stupid young mind was thinking).

I should have realized that something illegal was going on when I went to use the American Express card for the first and only time, Alfie had told me while I could use the card to build credit I was NEVER EVER permitted to use it so when I presented it for the first time at the counter of a department store they asked me for my license and for some reason I felt like this would get me in trouble so I told them I didn’t have one. I guess this seemed very suspicious, a young man of around 18 years of age, no I.D. using an American Express card. They took the card to the back room and I stood there at the counter becoming more and more nervous by the minute. I was told I needed to answer a call in the back room and I was sure I was going to be arrested, for what I don’t know, I just knew that somethin was wrong, I guess that deep down I had always known that something was wrong. I was given the phone receiver and spoke to a woman on the other end that told me that the card I was attempting to use had been reported as being stolen. I couldn’t understand this…I told her it was it was my card. She told me she had the owner of the card on the other line and it turned out to be Alfie and she put me through to him. When Alfie answered he told me that he had reported the card stolen from saving me from ruining my credit by going overboard and being a stupid youth I bought this story thinking that Alfie was only concerned about my welfare. I didn’t know that Alfie had the card replaced and this time kept it for himself. We are talking the 1970’s/1980’s and achieving credit was a different animal at that time, while things such as credit scores and identity theft may have occurred it was not something that was so prevalent that it was difficult to beat the system and Alfie and figured it out.

Alfie had other young men that did odd jobs for him, unlike me that had a steady role in his organization he had boys that moved things and delivered things and were pretty much available to do whatever he needed, many were juveniles, all were white, and all were pretty. There was one particular blonde boy that I myself found extremely attractive and he and I bonded. Whenever Alfie would bring him to the store to work he and I would spend a lot of time together. Nothing sexual or anything, we just became good friends, two young men of the about the same age we would banter back and forth, joke and kid, act immature. I don’t remember the kids name but he would spend a lot of time with Alfie in the basement of the circa 1890’s building that housed our store they were constantly bringing stuff into our building and moving stuff out, everything went to the basement and the basement was padlocked whenever Alfie was not in the building. The basement contained yet another of Alfie’s business empire that was separate from the Office Supply portion and this one was obviously illegal but I did not ask any questions.

One day I found out at least one of the activities that was going on in the basement when I was asked to join Alfie and the blonde boy, my friend. I hadn’t been asked down to basement often and I was always amazed by what was stored down there. Vending machines and boxes of stuff containing who knows what. It was always very interesting and I just wished that I could tear into some of the boxes to see what they contained. It was all obviously new stuff and I was sure there was stuff I could “take”, yes take. I wasn’t above helping myself to stuff in the store every now and then.

This particular day I was surprised when the blonde boy pulled down his pants and he dropped them to his ankles. I remember admiring is beautiful young tight ass. But then something very strange happened, he laid over Alfie’s lap and Alfie spanked him, HARD. I could see that Alfie, while dressed was aroused. When the boy stood Alfie’s dress slacks showed an impression of a rock hard cock. Then Alfie told me to take down my pants. I didn’t like this and don’t remember what or why I did this but but I ended up pulling down my pants and straddled Alfie’s lap for a spanking. I could feel his hard cock against my stomach. Alfie spanked my ass, it hurt but he sure was enjoyed it calling me a bad boy with every slap. This happened on one or two other occasions. I remember hating this experience but Alfie had us under his control. It didn’t really seem like it was sexual, I had never even known and was too young to realize that this was a fetish, I just knew that he got his kicks out of it and I didn’t understand why.

The spankings evolved sexual advances and intensified as time went on. My stomach would sink when Alfie would ask me to join him in the basement where now he would expose himself and ask me to touch him among other things. Up until now I had always liked Alfie but I was beginning to hate him. I rarely saw the blonde boy anymore and found out later that he ended up in juvenile jail.

Finally came the day when Alfie asked me to Hunt Club, the fancy restaurant I had mentioned prior, but before going to the restaurant he took me to his house. He showed me around his impressive home parts of which were just as cluttered as the basement of our Office Supply store but when we got to the bedroom he asked me to undress. Alfie had a camera set up in his room and it was aimed at the bed. At that time VHS machines were just being introduced but were not even yet a staple of the average household. This camera was hooked up directly to a TV. I did as I was told and took off my clothes. When I think back on this experience now, some 35 years later I just don’t know why Alfie had this power over me but he did. I guess I was afraid I would lose my job, I really can’t remember anymore but I still remember that room, that TV, that camera aimed at the bed.

He instructed me to masturbate while he filmed me. I assume this was going to be his way of establishing Gay Porn or perhaps he already had with all the young men that worked for him, I was just another patsy. He “directed” me and told me how he wanted me to lay, how to spread my legs, and then gave me a dildo and told me to insert it in my ass. I don’t know if the video he was making had sound or not, probably not, I never got to see the end product. I just know that the whole experience was very disturbing to me and there was no way I want to go out to dinner anymore. I told him I felt sick and wanted to go home. He pressed me, told me he wanted to continue filming. I was afraid that this ugly old man was going to try to fuck me or make me blow him on video. I imagined my parents seeing the video and I really did started getting sick. What had I done! I told him that if he didn’t take me to the Greyhound bus station I was going to start walking… again I don’t remember all the details of the conversation but he ended up taking me to the bus station and I never went back to work for Alfie.

Out of work, I went to the unemployment office and applied for benefits explaining that I had been sexually harassed. This was the late 70’s and people just didn’t think it was possible for a man to be sexually harassed at that time, especially by another man so I wasn’t taken very seriously, I remember the clerk smiling as if the whole story I was telling was comical, however my application was submitted. Later I was shocked what I received a letter telling me my claim was denied. Alfie’s business partner Alan had responded that there was no such person as this Alfie working at the store and that I was just a disgruntled employee that had lied. My claim was denied, no investigation, they just simply took the word of these lying bastards.

This upset me but not for long because shortly after I got a job at the Baltimore News American (a long gone Baltimore newspaper that competed with the Baltimore Sun) working in the mailroom. Part of my job in the mailroom was to collect $1.00 payments for classifieds in what was then a starter version of a special print similar to a “Penny-Saver”. Generally these would be checks for $1.00 or quite often dollar bills. I would make up the deposit (generally around $50 per day) and take that deposit to the bank. One day on my way to the bank I ran into the blonde, now out of juvenile, and he still worked for Alfie (and I assume still being spanked and probably participating in the porn which had this young man been there that night I might have performed longer). He told me that I had really pissed of Alfie with my claims of sexual harassment, even though the store told unemployment that Alfie didn’t work there, he continued to work there and was now angry at me. The blonde told me my name at the store was mud I told him I didn’t care and bragged about my new job at the News American; I should have known better than to have told the blonde where I worked and that was the start of Alfie getting his revenge on me for my accusation.

Several days, if not a week, passed and one day while working in the mailroom I was asked to meet with an HR person at the corporate level of the building. I was excited… my assumption was that I had done such a good job that I was going to be recognized for my work. You can imagine my surprise when I was arrested there and taken out of the building in handcuffs. It seemed that Alfie had reported to the police that I had been stealing money while I worked for him. A lie from the man that according to the Unemployment Office didn’t even work at the store. Alfie had gotten his revenge.

One Response to Help Wanted; Straight Acting Only Need Apply

When I began reading this, I thought it was going to be some sort of “Boy Meets World” gay story, but you had me absolutely entranced. You had me so involved and I too, have had similar situations in the past. Thanks for being so brutally honest and raw!